Poor Man’s Feast on the Road: A Week in New Mexico

I had been invited to speak at the first Edible Institute conference by Edible Communities founders Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, alongside writers like Tom Philpott, Deborah Madison, Gary Paul Nabhan, Samuel Fromartz, Brian Halweil, Fred Kirschenmann, and others, and I spent my first three days there wandering around Bishop’s Lodge sort of gape-mouthed, in awe at the company I was keeping. At one point, I stepped out of my room to find myself walking in the clouds–literally (Santa Fe is over 7000 feet)–and to say that it was appropriate to feel like I was in heaven would be an understatement. Something very indefinable happens when you get that many like-minded, passionate people together, and when the writings of so many of them have taken up serious real estate on your bedside table, for years; I was jelly-kneed during a lot of the conference, and I walked around for days like a wide-eyed child. At one point, I was sitting at a table listening to Tom Philpott interview Maisie Greenwald about the farm workers in Immokalee, Florida, and I realized that I was sandwiched between Gary Nabhan and Deborah Madison, and I nearly went over like a ton of bricks.

You want spiritual?

Susan flew out to join me last Friday, and of course, our attention turned to the subject of eating, as it always does. We were invited for dinner on Sunday night, along with restaurateur, Edible Iowa River Valley publisher, and founder of Slow Food Iowa City Kurt Michael Friese and his wife Kim, Tracey and Carole, and Edible Cape Cod publishers Doug Langeland and his wife Dianne, at the lovely home that Deborah Madison shares with her husband, artist Patrick McFarlin; the meal was utterly remarkable in its simplicity, its locality (Deborah served a Middle Eastern spice-rubbed, long-cooked lamb, which came from a neighboring ranch), and the precision and care with which it was prepared. Wine, brandy, and friendships both new and old flowed, and it was a dinner and a night I won’t ever forget.

A day later, after the conference had pretty much come to a close, Susan decided that we should drive up to the tiny town of Chimayo, both to see El Santuario de Chimayo–site of thousands of miraculous healings since around 1810–and to eat at Leona’s, where Susan had had her first tamale twenty years ago, when the restaurant was actually a small cart parked near the church. I won’t comment on the fact that we arrived just as Mass was beginning and that my partner is a seriously lapsed Catholic who actually didn’t move until the service was over, except to take communion. I also won’t comment on the neighboring church, the Santo Nino Chapel, built in 1857 by Severiano Medina, which was created to honor the saint who, it is said, wanders the hills around Chimayo, feeding the hungry and wearing out his shoes in the process. One of the rooms in the chapel is lined–completely–with baby shoes, brought by pilgrims asking for Santo Nino’s intervention on their behalf.

Jelly-kneed, again.

Looking across the plaza, I saw a small restaurant surrounded by ristras, and I realized that we were making a pilgrimage of our own to enjoy the simple, mouthwatering local food created by the petite and soft-spoken Leona Medina-Tiede (yes, a relation, I’m certain). For years, Leona was known for her flavored tortillas–everything from apple cinnamon to pinon–but today, her menu is simpler: it includes chile stew, posole, carne adovado, and tamales that are appropriately miraculous, and which Susan has dreamt about nonstop for twenty years. After days of feasting in some wildly delicious, often extremely expensive local Santa Fe restaurants, I was reminded of the truth about the best food: it needn’t be pricey, or even served on china. The best traditional chile stew I had in New Mexico was crafted by Leona, a woman who has fed thousands for years; it was presented to me in a white styrofoam bowl and served with a warm, fresh tortilla. And it was better than almost every restaurant meal I had there, save one (for another time).

New Mexico, to me, was miraculous, beautiful, and jarringly moving; its spirit bubbled to the surface not only in the usual places, like its churches and hills, but also in the friendships I made there, the things that I learned that will forever change the way I think about the production of food in this country, and the extraordinary, unforgettable meals I shared both in the home of new friends, and in a tiny restaurant owned by a small woman with a heart-melting smile.

That is spirit enough for me.